Ghee Bowman (1961-2025): A British historian who unearthed the stories of Indian soldiers at Dunkirk

One day in 2013, when Ghee Bowman was working on a project on the city of Exeter’s multicultural history, he found a book featuring three photographs of Indian soldiers in the English county of Devon during the Second World War.

It piqued his curiosity.

“I thought I knew about the Second World War, but I’d never imagined that there were Indian soldiers with turbans and mules in Devon,” he wrote.

Though he had a BA in drama, Bowman decided to start an MA in history – and went on to write a PhD dissertation on the 4,227 men of Force K6 contingent who spent most of the war in England.

Through their stories, he shone the spotlight on the often-ignored contribution of the 2.5 million men and women of the British Indian Army who had served during the Second World War

When Bowman started digging, he found that the British Army arrayed against Nazi Germany in Europe early in the war needed mules to transport artillery and supplies. The men of Force K6 and their mules were shipped in from India, more than 11,000 km away.

Several had been evacuated from Dunkirk in France in 1940 when the Allied defense collapsed and spent years in England.